“There is no better moment than this moment, when we're anticipating the actual moment itself. All of the moments that lead up to the actual moment are truly the best moments. Those are the moments that are filled with good times. Those are the moments in which you are able to think that it is going to be perfect, when the moment actually happens. But, the moment is reality, and reality always kinda sucks!”
-Lewis Black
I put that quote up above because it more or less symbolizes what I feel about the over promotion Disney did for the long awaited sequel to “Tron”: The company overhyped it to an alarming degree, making several different movie trailers, spending a good three years promoting it to no end. With this kind of marketing, many will go in thinking that “Tron: Legacy” will be one of the greatest movies ever made.
As for myself, I weary of the hype and try to go into most movies (particularly ones like these) with no expectations whatsoever. In fact, I think it’s better to watch most films with the lowest expectations possible. With hype that has greeted movies like this one or the “Star Wars” prequels or even “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” it is oh so easy to be incredibly disappointed by the finished product. Nothing ever does come out as well as it does in our own minds.
Well, reality may suck, but I didn’t think “Tron: Legacy” did. I walked in expecting a fun time, tickled to death that Disney actually had the balls to make a sequel to a movie that was not a big box office success to begin with. At the very least, this sequel which has been in the making for 28 years is really more of a continuation of what came before it. What it may lack in a fully coherent storyline it more than makes up for with amazing visual effects, a fantastic score by Daft Punk, and a pair of great performances from the always reliable (and no longer underappreciated) Jeff Bridges.
So here’s the story behind “Tron: Legacy”; after saying goodnight to his son Sam, Kevin Flynn rides off to Encom to work on a new digital frontier that will revolutionize the world of technology the way we all see it. Instead, he is soon reported as to have disappeared without a trace. Shift to a good 20 or so years later, and Sam has become a rebellious young kid with strong technology skills he gleefully uses to thwart the executives at Encom who look to profit and exploit Flynn’s work, the same work that he wanted to make available to us all without putting a price tag on it.
Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner, also returning from the original) comes to Sam’s domicile one night informing him that he got a page from his dad the other night, and that it came from a line at Flynn’s Arcade which has been shut down for 20 years. Sam ends up going into the arcade to see what’s what, and we all know what happens from there. Sam gets sucked into “the grid” the same way his father was, and is forced to fight for his life by hurling discs and racing light cycles like no one else.
The premise behind “Tron: Legacy” is actually quite interesting when you think about it: Kevin Flynn ends up developing a more advanced version of his Clu program (who appeared in the first movie) that of course looks exactly like him. Together, they work to create the perfect system that could bring about a new kind of life form never before thought possible. But somewhere along the line, Clu grows resentful and comes to see a world of perfection far more differently than his creator, and he soon turns against Flynn, making himself the ruler of all programs. As a result, Flynn ends up being trapped in “the grid” with no way out.
Throughout, we watch as Clu coldly eliminates those programs that do not meet his ridiculously high standards. It’s an interesting Frankenstein motif in how a creation runs amuck despite the master’s best intentions (and we all know where that leads to). It also reminded me of a line from “Star Trek: First Contact” which the Borg Queen said to Data as she held him captive:
“You’re an imperfect being created by an imperfect being. Finding your weakness is only a matter of time.”
The visual effects are unsurprisingly amazing, and they clearly reflect just how far technology has come since 1983. This time, they are much more fluid to where not everything is shown going in a straight line, and this gives the action scenes far more friction than they had in the original (not that I want to take away from that one). The use of dark and neon like colors doesn’t feel at all dated, and the costumes have been given a much needed upgrade. There’s no more of those bulky suits those red guards of
You can also count on a bunch of easter eggs throughout that pay homage to “Tron” and the characters that inhabited it like Dumont played by the late Bernard Hughes. Some locations are revisited, and some infamous lines are repeated without being too showy. It can be fun revisiting the past even if it will never be quite the same.
By having the story focus on Flynn’s son, it seemed like Disney was desperately trying to court the youth demographics and would have been happy to put any teen or young adult heartthrob into the role. Garrett Hedlund, however, turns out to be quite good and holds his own with Jeff Bridges. It’s not a great performance, but he does do solid work here and keeps his character from becoming some annoyingly whiny brat whose daddy issues get the best of him. Garrett does however have the disadvantage of having to utter some of the movie’s cheesiest lines like:
“This isn’t happening.”
“This can’t be good.”
Now when people say stuff like that, I can’t help but roll my eyes. Garrett’s success here comes from the fact that he kept me from doing that.
Another actor I enjoyed watching in “Tron: Legacy” was Olivia Wilde who played the warrior program Quorra. She has a strong and engaging presence here, and her role as a Data-like figure eager to learn more about the real world leads to some of the movie’s more intimate moments as well as some of its funniest. And yes, she does kick major ass in the action scenes, easily derezzing those evil programs without breaking a sweat.
But one actor I truly got a kick out of watching was the great Michael Sheen who plays Castor, the owner of the End Of The Line Club in
But of course, we have to acknowledge Jeff Bridges who will always remain one of my all time favorite movie actors. Jeff’s performance here reminded of just how good he was in the original in that he never let the special effects overwhelm his character of Kevin Flynn. Even though he was probably acting much of the time against a green screen, he makes himself feel like part of the reality, almost completely making us forget that he was acting with practically nothing to begin with during the making of this visual effects heavy film. Many other actors would probably be driven nuts by not having much to work with, but never Jeff.
Oh, and if you listen close enough, there is a line designed to instantly remind you of his infamous role in “The Big Lebowski.” Seriously, you’ll know it when it comes!
Yes, the story does have plot holes and some wooden dialogue, but so did the original. Thankfully though, none of it is as puke inducing as any words George Lucas ever put to paper in recent years! “Tron: Legacy” does also get a bit too slowed down by exposition which could have been shortened some. All the same, I’m glad that the writers didn’t just get lazy and bring back the Master Control Program (MCP) as if it was never defeated back in 1983. Most sequels these days seem to regurgitate the original, but the filmmakers clearly had more in mind this time around.
As far as I know, this is Joseph Kosinski’s feature film directing debut. In the past, he has received much acclaim for the “Mad World” commercial for the video game Gears Of War, and IMDB has him slated to direct the remake of “The Black Hole” (oh please!). For my money, he does a much better job of blending actors with special effects than George Lucas did with those “Star Wars” prequels. While he may need to work in humanizing the characters a bit more in these visual effects spectacles, Joseph does well in keeping “Tron: Legacy” from becoming overly-cheesy or infinitely monotonous.
And of course, I do want to acknowledge the soundtrack by Daft Punk. Although my first choice for scoring this film would have been Hybrid, Daft Punk does seem like a perfect fit for this kind of material which serves as their first official film score. Many I know expressed disappointment over the CD of their soundtrack because they felt it sounded nothing like their albums, but that’s ridiculous when you think about it. Like the brilliant score Wendy Carlos did for the first film, their music is a strong mix of orchestral and electronic elements which does a great job of bringing more humanism and emotion to a wholly technological world. To simply create a score of back to back dance tunes that would bring out a sweat in all of us would not have worked.
I don’t know, maybe I am not being hard enough on “Tron: Legacy.” Could it have been a better film? Sure, but why can’t we just be happy that Disney took the big risk of making a sequel to it? For what it is, I enjoyed it a lot and admired the fact that it was made by people who respected what came before it. 28 years is a massively long time to wait for any sequel, and recapturing the magic of its predecessor is usually asking for far too much. “Tron: Legacy” however was worth the wait for me, and I would certainly be open to seeing it again while it is still in theaters.
Still, I have to wonder, can human beings really exist in a digital world even though they are users instead of programs. Can a program actually be brought into the real world? Oh who cares! I had fun!
End of line.
***½ out of ****
Incidentally, I did see the movie in 3D, and the effects are quite good. There is a note at the start of it saying that some scenes were shot intentionally in 2D, and the 3D really doesn’t kick in until Sam gets inside the world of the computer.
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